Silence, in the field of telecommunications, is the lack of sound in a voice communication session (e.g., an absence of communication). In most conversations, short absences of speech can suggest boundaries and turn-taking. The absence of communication may not actually be without sound. Absence of communication can also include background noise (e.g., paper rustling, typing) or music on hold.
Many companies have developed ways to measure silence for contact center calls in order to manage a metric known as Average Handling Time (AHT). Contact center agents found to have high AHTs are often subject to review and corrective action, especially if the calls handled by the agent have long periods of silence.
While effective to some degree, the current AHT models do not account for calls that, by their nature, will have measurable periods of non-communication. For example, if a contact center agent asks a customer to perform an action that may require the customer to put the phone down for a period of time (e.g., to reset a modem), the contact center agent can be penalized for AHT and lack of communication; the penalty occurs even though the actions taken by the contact center agent and the resulting silence are necessary for servicing the contact center call.